Independence Is Still A Revolutionary Act

Independence is about a whole lot more than firing up the barbecue, drinking some beer with friends, and shooting off fireworks. It’s about more than blindly waving a flag.

It’s about the way we live our lives every single day. And 241 years later, independence is still the most revolutionary act you can commit.

Now, regardless of how you feel about this administration or the previous one, I think we can all agree that many of the liberties our parents took for granted are now in trouble.

The government, in general, cannot be trusted. The media cannot be trusted. Those agencies that make all the onerous rules “to keep us safe” cannot be trusted.

Real liberty is up to you. Use it or lose it.

Many Americans are completely dependent upon the work of others to survive.

I’ve often written about how we’ve become a nation of consumers instead of a nation of producers, and with that decline in productivity, we have lost much of the freedom we once treasured.

This is because they are not independent. They are the opposite of that – they’re dependent.

Their food comes in little cartons that have been inspected and labeled as safe, despite the numerous carcinogens and unpronounceable chemicals within.

Their meat is raised in horrific conditions in a facility crowded in with other animals. These animals are so sick and stressed that they have to be constantly medicated and treated with hormones to make them grow faster and keep them alive until slaughter time. Those chemicals pass on to the consumer, of course.

Their fruits, vegetables, and grains are doused with a chemical so carcinogenic that it isn’t allowed to be used in Europe and one state has insisted that all food so treated must be labeled as potentially carcinogenic.

Their medicine comes from the pharmacy. They purchase it for enormous sums of money after a doctor’s visit that isn’t actually covered by the massively expensive insurance they are forced to buy, so he’s paid from their pocket too.

Their utility usage is without thought. Their heat comes from a dial, their water comes from a faucet, and their electricity comes from those little plugs in the wall. If for some reason those things worked no longer, most people would have no idea how to function.

Their children learn at a state-sponsored school what the state wants the children to know. Practical skills that will get them through life, like shop class or home economics, are now ignored and have been replaced with classes on social justice and health, which is far from anything in the health classes of the past.

Their HOAs, cities, and communities pass rules about how their property can and cannot be used. These rules state that they can’t grow food in their own yards, they can’t raise hens for fresh eggs, and they can’t even hang laundry on the line to dry outside their homes.

Their right to freely travel is infringed upon by thugs with the power to touch them inappropriately, go through their luggage, and make them miss their planes if they do not comply. They have to take off their shoes, earrings, and belts and walk through a metal detector to get on a plane.

Each year, fees are extorted from them so that larger fees won’t be extorted. They pay fees to live on the property they purchased. They pay fees to drive the cars that they own, to have a license that confirms they know how to drive, to own a business, and in some places, to do something as simple as selling the eggs their backyard hens produce. If they’re caught skipping the payment of those fees, they can be kidnapped and put in a cage until they’ve learned their lessons.

And yet, they comply. They truly believe that this is what freedom looks like. When they lose freedoms they comfort themselves with, “This is the price we pay to live somewhere safe and civilized.”

How far we have sunk…

How distant we’ve ventured from those original settlers who said, “No more!” and declared their freedom. They fought and sacrificed to be free of a government that oppressed them, taxed them, stole from them, and enforced rules without any type of representation upon them.

And yet here we stand on July 4, 2017. We have somehow forgotten what freedom really means and so we have lost it, incrementally and for many people, voluntarily.

The rights that were demanded 241 years ago when the founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence have been systematically crushed “for our own good.” We’re being oppressed and stolen from. Rules are being enforced on us without representation. Because let’s face it, the only people that most of our members of Congress are serving are the ones lining their pockets.

We are taxed unreasonably, and if we don’t pay, they will take the money right from our bank accounts or steal our possessions.

In many states, we must ask for permission to catch a fish, drive a car, own a gun, or build an extra room onto our homes, just to name a few.

Permits and licenses are big revenue generators from start to finish – and if you proceed without asking permission, they will extort more money from you in the form of fines. If you refuse to pay the fines (or if you can’t) they’ll kidnap you and lock you in a cage, where you’ll be forced to perform manual labor for 10 cents an hour for whatever length of time the legal authorities feel is sufficient to teach you a lesson.

Then there’s civil asset forfeiture. In many instances, without due process or a trial, our possessions and money can be taken from us on the “suspicion” that they are the benefits of some crime we haven’t been convicted of.

We’re unable to voice our opinions without incurring the wrath of so-called social justice warriors, who perhaps once actually meant well in an idealistic kind of way, but now just want to silence everyone with a dissenting opinion.

Every time a bad act occurs, people plead to give away even more of their freedom because they believe it will make them safer. They are willing to be fondled and naked-body-scanned by the TSA in order to board a plane. They want to make a phone call and wait for the police to save them instead of picking up their own firearm and refusing to be a victim. They want to be surrounded by gun free zones, rainbows, and armed guards instead of taking responsibility for their own safety.

People believe that they must go and vote and choose “the lesser of two evils” in a presidential election that has been shown to be a sham directed by the media and social networks. Why must we choose between evils? Are there really no good people in America that could take on that office? Perhaps the candidates we get are the candidates we deserve when we refuse to demand better.

Somehow, this land of rugged individuals has become largely populated with scared children, who expect to be cared for, fed, protected, and made to feel good about themselves, all by government mandate. Many people seem to have no desire whatsoever to earn their keep, provide for their families, or take responsibility for their own safety. They expect the workplace to be one of sunshine and lollipops, with ample time off, equal pay for all, and. don’t forget, lots of kind words for everyone.

Our culture is just so incredibly dependent.

And to some extent, we, the rugged independents who are left, have let this happen because the dependents are louder than us.

Freedom is terrifying to most people because it means that they and they alone, are responsible for the actions that they take. An independent person succeeds or fails on his or her own merit. Independence by its very nature means that the possibility of failure exists. It requires a sense of adventure, confidence, and the ability to fail and get right back up again, and it seems like these things are being bred out of the American people.

It doesn’t have to be like this.

Whether you call it freedom, liberty, sovereignty, or self-governance, the point remains the same: if you’re reading this, you probably want to determine your own life, whether the result is success or failure. You want to have control over your ability to live, truly live, and not merely exist as a slave to the powers that be.

There actually is something we can do.

We can say no.

Hell, no.

We can be the squeaky wheel.

We can be louder than those dependent, noisy individuals who want to throw away liberty. We can.

You may feel like you aren’t in the right place in life to declare your independence. Perhaps you don’t have room to raise your own food. Perhaps you have a physical handicap that bars you from living 30 miles from civilization in a yurt located down a dirt road, over a creek, and in the woods. Maybe it’s all you can do financially to keep the refrigerator full of groceries for the week.

But wherever you are right now, that’s okay. Wherever you are, know that every single person, even the very free-est person you know, started at a place that was less free than where they are right now. The most important thing is to begin to recognize the chains that are on you so that you can begin, link by link, to break them.

How do you break free of the life that nearly every single person around you lives?

It’s simple, yet so complicated.

Here it is, the ultimate act of revolution.

It is so very simple.

You have to need less.

When you need less, you have less to fear.

Now, every year when I write about this topic, a few people come out of the woodwork to claim, “It’s not enough.” Not everyone is a warrior, but taking steps to become freer than you were the day before is a cause for celebration.

It is simply reality that most of us cannot make a stand in every single aspect of our lives. We have children that could be taken away from us. We have homes that could be seized. We fear being imprisoned in a cage. I get that, truly. I don’t want to lose my daughter or my home or be thrown in jail either. The folks in control have done their job in that respect, but we can work around it.

We can refuse to eat the poisoned apple that they graciously hand to us. We can stop sending their children to public school for “free” education.We can all stop purchasing processed food that originated as the bastard child of factory farming and a chemistry project. We can refuse to shop at Wal-Mart, K-mart, or any of those corporate discount stores that have their products manufactured in sweat shops overseas so that they can undercut the Mom & Pop stores right out of business.

Every single day, I strive to reduce my vulnerability to coercion. Because, the less I need, the more difficult I am to manipulate.

And you?

You don’t need this stuff they are offering, either. There is so much that you can do to free yourself from them.

You have a natural human right to be free.

This freedom is also supposed to be protected by our Constitution, which gets undermined on a regular basis. If you aren’t free, then revolution is your duty. Part of the power that the government holds over people is the fact that they hold the keys to the stuff we need. So, true independence is not to need the stuff they have. When there is nothing that you require enough to submit, then bullying you becomes much more difficult.

Make your life a declaration of independence.

Here are a few steps you can take to make yourself less dependent on the whims of the economy, the government, and corporate interests. Don’t worry if they seem impractical to you. They may not all be possible right this moment. Pick one and act on it, then another. Every journey begins with the decision to start the trip.

If you reduce your consumerist habits, you will lower your cost of living. Then, you’ll need less money.

If you need less money, you can stop exchanging as much of your time for dollars.

If you grow your own food, you will never be dependent on the government to help you to afford to buy food made more expensive by their onerous regulations and made less healthy by for-profit companies that process it beyond recognition, all with a government stamp of approval. (Not to mention how much better the quality will be.)

If you barter your goods or services for someone else’s goods or services, then no one else needs to be involved. (Although I’m sure both parties will be happy to pay the government the taxes due for the barter exchange. *cough*)

If you don’t send your kids to school, and instead, educate them at home, then you don’t need to get them vaccinated so they can attend school. You don’t have to watch them get brainwashed into dependency like the other kids. You don’t have to send them to a place that is so akin to prison that they can only go to the bathroom in the minutes between bells.

If you don’t make much money, you don’t pay much in the way of taxes.

If you are self-employed, you can’t be threatened with the loss of your job for non-compliance with *pick a ridiculous law*

If you shop locally, from farms and craftsmen, you don’t need the big box stores.

If you have the ability and equipment to defend yourself, you don’t need to call 911 and wait helplessly for the police to arrive.

If you always object to unfairness, unconstitutional behavior, and dishonesty, you can help shed light on the issues at hand, and that is the first step towards resolving them.

The way you lead your life every single day can be a personal Declaration of Independence.

By refusing to concede your natural rights, quietly and resolutely, you are performing an act of revolution.

This only requires one thing: your consistent determination not to be infringed upon.

Make that decision today and you will really have something to celebrate on Independence Day.

Go ahead. Be free.

Please feel free to share any information from this site in part or in full, leaving all links intact, giving credit to the author and including a link to this website and the following bio. Daisy is a coffee-swigging, gun-toting, homeschooling blogger who writes about current events, preparedness, frugality, and the pursuit of liberty on her websites, The Organic Prepper, where this article first appeared, and DaisyLuther.com She is the author of 4 books and the co-founder of Preppers University, where she teaches intensive preparedness courses in a live online classroom setting. You can follow her on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter,.

19 Commentson "Independence Is Still A Revolutionary Act"

What our founding document asserts are fundamental principles are 1) equality and 2) consent of the governed.

The US is the most unequal society of all 35 advanced nations, and of our last 3 Presidents, 2 gained power without majority consent.

Most of the issues in this catalog of sins (can’t grow food in your own yard) apply to 1% of the nation. The real issues, inequality, leadership by illegitimate rulers, are ignored. It is not “government” which is the villain but a government hijacked by billionaires and wealthy corporations.

Yes, self-goverment by the people: sovereignty of the individual is a contradiction in terms. Only the People collectively can be sovereign. If an individual is sovereign, he stands above the law, like a tyrant. Sovereignty resides in the people of a community.

sov·er·eign·ty
[sov-rin-tee, suhv-]

NOUN [PLURAL SOV·ER·EIGN·TIES.]
1.
the quality or state of being sovereign, or of having supreme power or authority.

A person with supreme power would be a monarch: our nation was founded on rejecting monarchy and establishing the sovereignty of We the People, tho it has been an oligarchy of the ruling class, at first slave owners and then bankers and the weathy corporations since.

I do almost all suggested to the degree I can, but we need to more than drop out; we need to drop in, become engaged, march, write, speak up and support those who will represent our voice. We need to complete the American Revolution. We need to create a government that serves us, not dodge taxes, etc. We need to both resist and create and we need to do it together.

Without equality, we have masters and slaves. Without equality, there is no freedom. This is the argument of our founding document which makes equality and consent of the governed, the basic concept of democracy. Where inequality reigns, there is freedom only for the masters.

You are confusing the group that created the Declaration of Independence, democrats like Paine, Jefferson, and Adams with the very different group, many who had opposed the Revolution, half slave owners, many war profiteers and land speculators who wrote the Constitution, who overturned the principles of equality and consesnt (a good definition of democracy) and created an oligarchy dominated by the minority of slave owners in the South. Of the first 12 Presidents, 10 were slave owners and of the two who were not, one voted for slavery.

For full documentation, see Jensen’s classic New Nation which details the different ideologies and values of the two very different groups. The authors of the Constitution did indeed fear democracy (hatred if based on fear) and that is why the democrats like Paine, Adams, and Jefferson were not welcome.

Read the Declaration of Independence; it asserts that those who rule without consent (and Jefferson wrote of how a majority was necessary) rule illegitimately and unjustly.

Here is Jefferson on majority rule (the essence of democracy):
“he only way a republican government can function, and the only way a people’s voice can be expressed to effect a practicable control of government, is through a process in which decisions are made by the majority. This is not a perfect way of controlling government, but the alternatives–decisions made by a minority, or by one person–are even worse and are the source of great evil. To be just, majority decisions must be in the best interest of all the people, not just one faction.

“The first principle of republicanism is that the lex majoris partis is the fundamental law of every society of individuals of equal rights; to consider the will of the society enounced by the majority of a single vote as sacred as if unanimous is the first of all lessons in importance, yet the last which is thoroughly learnt. This law once disregarded, no other remains but that of force, which ends necessarily in military despotism.” –Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 1817. ME 15:127″http://famguardian.org/subjects/Politics/ThomasJefferson/jeff0500.htm

In his many reiterations of this concept, he presents democracy not just as a set of principles but as a strategy to avoid evil rulers who, ruling without consent or popular support, must rely on lies, threats, and violence to compel obedience.

Democracy then is a strategy to avoid evil rulers. Proof is manifest in those who lost elections and gained power and did great evil, from Hitler to Mussolini, to Bush II to this Trump dude, who his aready at war in 7 nations and threatening to start WWIII by attacking several military allies of Russia (Iran and Syria).

Unpopular Presidents start wars to rally support…..that is why the strategy of democracy is critical to avoiding such evil rule, which almost always ends in catastrophic wars and disaster.

Everyone differs innately, genetically, from everyone else. Therefore, some are naturally more superior in some things than other are. (Some people are superior to others in intelligence, ambition, character, beauty, physical build, health, athletic ability, etc.) Conversely, some are naturally inferior. Equality can only be proven by equality of outcome, results, and station, as you suggest. As the inferior cannot be raised to the level of the superior, the superior must be suppressed to the level of the inferior. For example, a person with an IQ of 80 cannot become a physical. However, a person with an IQ of 130 can, but he can be prevented from becoming one. A overweight 5-foot awkward person cannot become a NBA center without the NBA being force to make him a center. However, a highly coordinated athletic 7-foot person can become an NBA center, but the 7-footer can be prevented from becoming one. The doctor and center will have wealth and influence, and that can never be if equality is the goal. If equality is to goal, no one should have more wealth, influence, or power than anyone else. Whom to propose doing the suppression?

By the way, Jefferson and Adams may have “talked the talk” but they did not “walk the walk.” Neither reduced their wealth, influence, power, etc. to achieve equality.

John Quincy Adams and Lincoln receive the lowest percentage of the popular vote of any president. Thus, by your claims, they were the most illegitimate president the US ever had. Moreover, Hitler was elected to his office according to the German constitution. When combined the office of Chancellor and President into himself, he began violating the constitution.

If you want to see democracy in action, look to the French Revolution. Moreover, even in the most authoritarian countries, people have the right to vote and are often forced to vote.

Under democracy, the majority rules. So if the majority wanted to outlaw blue-eyed people, it can do so by killing all blue-eyed people. If blue-eyed people object and resist, then they are trying to impose minority rule on the majority.

1. You are confusing equality under the law with similarity. They are unrelated concepts.

As for the hypocrisy of those who signed the Delcaration and supported its democrtic principles but owned slaves, that is a tragic truth. It does not invalidiate the principles that they were betrayed, .

As for consent, the democratic traditon is majority ruie, but in a split race the person with the highest number of votes is the winner, as with Lincoln and Clinton.

In an improved democracy, there would be a run off (as recently in France) to establish an absolute majority.

Of course, many undemocratic governments use the facade of democracy, but deep democracy is not just majority rule. It includes inviolable rights (whereby the minority can become the majority, an independent judiciary, a free and diverse press, an informed and engaged citizenry, and a culture of tolerance of differing views.

Genuine democracy is not just voting but all the above pre-conditions. The majority in true democracy cannnot take away rights or establish a judcieary which curbs guaranteed liberties or controls the media.

Fake democracy often uses plebsicites (vote yes or no on one candidate) and and other forms of anti-democratic practices, such as when Yeltsin banned all opposition parties and media in Russia in the 90’s or as when the CIA controls the press.

I hope I have addressed all your issues,by expanding on what authentic democracy, a culture going back centuries and part of the Enlightenment concept of
basic human rights and limited government.

A valid principle, or strategy, such as the democratic concepts of equality and consent of the governed, are not invalidated by those who betray them but become all the more necessary to establish legitmate and just rule.

You have defined fake democracy, and I have attempted to articulate the foundations of real democracy.

The U.S. is a most oppressive regime that is in reality a corporation.
Wake up folks WtP have been led down the yellow brick rose and no Oz to bring us back.
We send them out of pocket 30% of our paycheck and they give us:
Vaccines that destroy the auto immune system.
Expensive synthetic drugs that attack organs whilst masking the original trouble.
GMO that attacks organs.
Fluoride that rots us from the inside out.
Perpetual wars that destroy human beings.
Schools for fools.
They are the misery.

Wrong dude. Do some fucking research, and find out that despite these things, we are also aware of them all, and can fight against them. While these things do suck, the freedom and properity experienced by this current system that still remains an experiment, is the highest standard of living the current world has ever seen, even for the poorest of citizens. That being said I agree that all these things are terrible and in my mind I can imagine a future without them, but there are far worse places in the world and in its history…